Playing Pirates
by grizzlebear
Summary: AcexOC, AU – Kia Wordstar is a mysterious girl with secrets cloaking her past. Joining the Whitebeard Pirates carelessly, she is thrust into adventures that threaten to reveal who she really is – but she knows that playing pirates can't last forever...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Disclaimed. One Piece = not mine.

_Pirates._

_Chapter 1_

_Stand & Deliver, people... Reviews?_

_

* * *

  
_

"Man overboard, man overboard!!"

The gruff voice came from a low-class pirate aboard the Moby Dick, as he leaned over the railings, sighting a man covered in a fallow brown cloak, with a loose hood shrouding his face and covering all his hair. He was floating atop of a large piece of wood, with a hand lightly dipping into the water, as the waves washed him to and fro.

Whitebeard calmly commanded for them to bring him up. The same man jumped into the water and pulled the limp body back onto the ship, noting how light he was.

He placed him down carefully on the floorboards, in front of the Captain. The crew gathered around, as Whitebeard inspected the boy, who was currently unconscious. The crew waited in anticipation for their captain's response. Toss him overboard again? Beat him till he's near dead? Kill him in cold blood? All of these faint ideas seemed all the more appealing as Edward Newgate kept them in suspense.

But as they were starting to become more and more impatient with how inspecting the boy with just a pair of eyes could take so long, the Captain finally gave a conclusion in the form of a smirk.

"Fine ol' scallywag lass, that is, Boys," Whitebeard called, crossing his arms and leaning back into his chair.

"Lass, Captain?" the second division commander, Ace, asked, slightly confused.

"Lift her hood off her face, boy."

Ace did as his Captain said, and approached the unconscious figure wearily. He kneeled down next to the supposed 'girl', and propped her head on his strong forearm, as he pulled the light material off. And sure enough, a long cascade of strawberry-blonde locks tumbled out recklessly, and her dainty face was exposed to the crew. They gaped wordlessly as Ace still held her delicately. Her features were picture-perfect, and her expression was at complete peace. Her pale skin and unwounded curls at the end of her hair, made her seem surreally similar to a porcelain doll.

Ace stared long and hard, silently wishing to be able to see her unopened eyes. He reached out his hand to push back a lazy strand of hair obstructing her face, but before he could even touch her, he heard a demanding, foreign voice, echoing somewhere he couldn't pin-point.

'_**Touch her and die, Jackass!'**_

Ace immediately startled and let go of the girl, stumbling backward. The crew stared at him, shocked at his sudden jerky movement, as he looked around him in a ready-for-battle position.

"Something wrong, Ace?" Marco asked, worriedly.

Ace frowned deeply. "Did you just hear a voice?"

They all looked at the young freckled boy as if he were going crazy. This gave Ace the answer to his question – no, they didn't hear anything. Was it just his imagination?

But before he could tackle for anymore answers, the girl stirred and her body twitched. Her eyes then fluttered open slowly, as she was brought back to consciousness. She looked about 18 years old – only 2 years younger than Ace.

Her head was still drowsy, and her mind was masked in an abyss of whirling thoughts. Once she had collected her thoughts, she looked up to see a whole crew of pirates staring back down on her speechlessly.

'_Mountbatten pink eyes… and they're extremely large,'_ Ace thought carelessly. He walked forward and offered his hand out to the somber girl, whose expression didn't change, or show any signs of fright or emotion.

She stared at him straight in the eyes, unwavering, and then looked down at his hand. After contemplative thought and thorough subtle inspections of the freckled boy to see if he was dangerous or not, she decided on the latter. Her petite fingers wrapped around his large ones, as he pulled her up securely.

The expression didn't change. Her round-as-saucer eyes remained void of any feeling and void of weakness. The whole ship remained quiet, until Marco stepped forward and asked for her name.

"Kia Wordstar," she replied, non to hesitantly. She was careless with giving out information like this, but they didn't seem like bad people. She was a tad bit shocked at the sudden change in surroundings, but after floating in the water for so long, she was bound to end up somewhere, even heaven if the circumstances were cruel enough.

When she had spoken, her voice was soft, but even-toned. There was a sense of nonchalance wrapped around every syllable, but not so it seemed she was arrogant or vain.

"Kia, eh?" Whitebeard called. "Do you see that Jolly Roger up there, lass?"

She looked up to where the large man was pointing. "Of course – I'm anything but blind," she replied monotonously.

"Heh," the Captain smirked, before continuing, "Do you know who we are, Miss. Wordstar?"

"Pirates, Sir."

"Certainly, Miss Wordstar. And the Whitebeard Pirates we are, to be specific. Not to boast, but we have some pretty strong fighters aboard… so, why aren't you flinching, shaking or screaming in fright at the sight of these dangerous buccaneers?"

The crew could tell that their Captain was intrigued with the girl. He always had a knack for spotting rookies who could be potentially great fighters… but this girl looked too delicate for battle.

"Flinching, shaking or screaming, Sir?" Kia inquired, with a raise of one thin eyebrow. "Very well, I shall satisfy your need for a little fright in a person." She walked up steadily closer to the Captain, both of them stubbornly holding their place. "Wow," she called, deadpan, as she craned her neck to look into Whitebeard's wise eyes. "You sure are tall, Sir. It's a little frightening…"

"Badly done, Miss Wordstar, but it proved that I'm more than intrigued at your charades. Join our crew, and I'm sure your assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have an eye for amateurs that could very well be something great."

Without thinking twice, she gave her reply to the invitation. Being part of Whitebeard's crew could be very advantageous.

"Very well, but under 1 small condition."

He nodded for her to continue.

"My past, why I was found in the water and where I come from all stay from the ears of your entire crew, including yourself. No questions can be asked about myself unless I am willing to tell, which I doubt will be any time soon."

The Captain thought for a second, as he looked towards some unwilling eyes from his crew, which blatantly knew better than to let a complete stranger onto the Moby Dick.

However, Whitebeard was never one to do as other people thought. "We have a deal, Miss. Wordstar. Marco!"

The first commander stepped forward, with his hands tucked inside his trouser pockets casually.

"Kia is to join under your division. Teach her the basics of the Whitebeard Pirates and get her comfortable with the crew. Show her the room she will be staying in and train with her after she's gotten some sleep. Now off with yer all!"

The crew hastened away and Marco walked up to the cloaked girl. She was about 5'4", therefore aligning with his chest. Her wide eyes looked up at him without a meaning in them.

He held out his hand awkwardly, as she stared down at it before slowly shaking hands.

"Name's Marco – pleased to meet you, Kia." His greeting was short, as he didn't know what to say around her. She would have a hard time fitting in with all the crude males aboard the ship, and all the prissy nurses tending to his Captain.

"Likewise." She watched, with her peripheral vision, a group of the crew keeping their distance and glaring at her with distrustful eyes. "It seems that no one trusts me."

Suddenly, a tall male with an orange cowboy-styled hat came up behind Marco. She recognized him as the same person who helped her up off the Moby Dick's floor.

"It'll take them time to get used to a new-comer who imposes a set of conditions on our Captain, so don't expect a grand welcome," he coolly informed. He seemed friendly as he introduced himself quickly to be named 'Ace'.

"A grand welcome is far from my expectations and I don't deserve any such form of trust either." She thoughtlessly twirled a stand of strawberry-blonde hair around her finger as she added, "I may look deceiving, but I wouldn't dare betray this crew. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must talk with your Captain."

They let her leave to their Captain's chambers. They engaged in a serious conversation about how Kia would only use the form of 'your Captain' even though Whitebeard was also her Captain now too. They ignored it for the while and walked off to their own business.

Kia knocked on Whitebeard's door a boringly conventional 3 times. A nurse answered and led her into his room, where the Captain was currently taking some form of medication. She waited until the nurses cleared out after he had swallowed his last pill. Whitebeard spoke first.

"Kia Wordstar, you look eerily familiar, but my old age won't let me remember…"

"And it's for the better too. Why did you ask me to join?"

"I can tell you have some sort of Devil's Fruit and that you will be invaluable for a constantly wanted crew like this one. I'm guessing we'll just have to wait and see for your ability to be revealed."

"My very presence on this crew will endanger it further if I'm not careful, but I give you my word that I will not intentionally hurt anyone aboard this ship. But as for the devil's fruit, you guessed right. I have no intention to expose the ability I possess until it is absolutely inevitable." She paused slightly before continuing, "But I must warn you, Sir, in advance…"

He arched an eyebrow curiously.

"I may leave suddenly and never come back again. It's standard procedure under the name of Kia Wordstar, Sir. Of course, you will be informed, but no order can keep me from leaving."

He frowned slightly before waving his hand to dismiss her. "Just when I was starting to have some fun at this age of mine…"

* * *

Updated soon, i promise :)


	2. Chapter 2

_Pirates. _

_Chapter 2._

_Stand & Deliver (the highwayman's back)_

* * *

After 4 days of constant isolation from the crew (not that she minded much), excluding the strange fellows, Marco and Ace, Kia felt a certain relief to be docking at a winter island. It was a great expanse of white snow for as far as you could see and heavily occupied with evergreen forests. There was a small town on a risen hill with wooden cabins and cute shops in neatly rows.

They managed to stock up in one day, but the log pose didn't set for at least 2, meaning they had one spare day to kill, doing anything they felt like before they would set off for another island.

Kia jumped off the ship immediately, landing perfectly on freshly fallen snow. Her boots made a deep imprint in the 7 inch snow, which reached up to her shin, as her brown cloak fell aimlessly at her sides. She was wearing a plain scarf and sheepskin mittens for the weather, as well as a light pink knitted beret atop her head.

She went straight into a nearby forest as she walked confidently through, almost tricking the crew into believing she knew where she was going – but in reality, she had no clue.

"Get back on the ship before night falls, Kia!" a crew member shouted as he was just about to head for the town. She waved casually behind her shoulder, signifying that she had heard, but she never slowed her pace.

After 30 minutes of constant walking, she finally stopped at the edge of a clearing. Overhead were trees reaching far taller than her height and extending into the cloudless sky. She purposely fell into the snow and onto her back, were she lay as still as night. She breathed, enjoying the cold warmth the snow gave her, as her breath formed a light cloud against the frosty air that stung her cheeks and dampened her locks. There was barely a breeze, and no trace of living organisms. Complete silence consumed the clearing.

She finally stood up and started to make her way into the middle of the clearing, where she crouched down and used her mittens to scrape a pile of snow into a singular spot. The pile of snow grew higher and higher, until most of the snow from the clearing were now concentrated in that one spot in the centre. She smiled in satisfaction and brushed her gloves against each other to illustrate a job well done.

But, all of a sudden, a foreign rustle from the forest around her caught her attention immediately. She spun round towards the source, but only saw the familiar face of Ace.

She gave a soft sigh of relief as he started to walk over to her and her mountain of snow, which must have been about 5 and a half feet.

"Hm, you like the snow?" Ace asked as he eyed the snow intriguingly with an eyebrow raised. He had on a flannel shirt, unlike his usual attire that consisted of no shirt at all, as well as a warm sheepskin jacket, thick gloves, a thick scarf and tall, loose boots.

"There's not much snow where I come from," she replied in her crouching position as she traced small patterns in the snow.

Ace realized that this was the first time Kia had ever talked about where she had come from.

"And when there is snow," she continued, "it's only fake."

"Fake?" Ace repeated, shivering from the frost.

"My family has… a way of getting what they want, so a scientist on my island created a machine that creates fake snow, and it covers the entire island in a white blanket." She smiled enigmatically before adding, "I never liked it. It didn't feel anything like real snow – nothing like this snow." She grabbed a handful of the soft ice below her fingers.

He stared at her inquisitively noticing the soft spot she had for the frozen water. Her eyes lighted up at the sight of it, which was the most prominently seen expression on her face since they met.

She didn't know why she was telling him all this. It was irrelevant and something could carelessly slip from her tongue if she carried on. But talking to him was so easy and… comfortable.

"You hate snow, don't you." The sentence was more of a fact than a question, but he answered nonetheless.

"I hate everything cold or wet. It goes against my Devil's Fruit ability. Actually, you should be lucky to even see me in the snow like you are now. Normally, I'm bunked up in my cabin back on the ship."

"Well, I guess I do have certain auspicious moments in my life at times."

He grinned as he walked closer to her and crouched down in front of the pile of snow and examined it. "Not much of a snowman, is it?"

"It isn't supposed to be, Mister Ace."

"A snow mountain maybe?"

"Incorrect. It's me." She stared at her 'piece of art' proudly, but Ace just saw it as a pile of snow.

Well, it was about the same height as her, but it bore no features and no shape that made it clear that it was made to resemble a human. He stared at it incredulously for a few moments before standing from his crouching position and turning around, facing the direction of where the ship was docked. He gave a soft sigh and then called, "Come on, Kia – it's starting to fall into night. We need to get back on the ship."

She stood up and took one last look at her snow form before following after Ace.

-&-

"Fire the cannons! All hands on deck!"

The battle cries were started 2 days after they had left the winter island. In the middle of the ocean, a fierce fight had started with an extremely large crew of bounty hunters, named the 'The Grand Lion Hearts' and consisting of about 3000 members, compared to Whitebeard's 1600 and only one battle ship, whilst the 'Lion Hearts' had three.

Their ships were circling the Moby Dick and firing cannons at long range. However, they were slowly starting to float closer and closer towards the Whitebeards. They were preparing for a close range battle with swords and Devil's Fruits.

Everyone was busy loading cannons or repairing parts of the ship where damage had been severe… but everyone knew that once they would engage in close range combat, the Whitebeard Pirates were unstoppable.

And soon enough, bounty hunters had started to force their way onto the Moby Dick, where many fights were forming on deck.

Both Ace and Marco and the other commanders were beating down there opponents easily, but others were struggling. Kia Wordstar was staying far from the battle, near her bed chambers, as she was reluctant to use her ability, which was the only experienced method of fighting so far in her life. But when she saw a man cut down in front of her, and as she looked up, unmindful of the danger in the form of an abnormally butch man, she knew that she wouldn't be able to live without using it.

A sharp axe swung down at her, threatening to cut her into two, but she dodged by dipping under his arm so their fight was more exposed. A few members of Whitebeard's crew were distracted at the large man picking a fight with the petite form of Kia. Curious of what ability she had stowed away, most of them tried ending their battles quickly or, for some more experienced fighters, watched her intriguingly as they were still combating.

"It's your unlucky day today, Missy," the man crudely addressed to Kia, who was not at all phased by his tough appearance. She was stood much like how she would stand if she was waiting in a queue.

"Unlucky? I'll have you know that my days have been quite the opposite recently, Mister."

He growled at her daring reply and came charging at her with full force, his axe raised high above his head, and ready to strike down on Kia.

Surprisingly, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her opponent's weak spot – the mind.

"_Two minds_," she breathily whispered.

All of a sudden, the man fell on his side, screaming out in pain and clawing his head forcefully.

And the last blow:

"_Shut down_."

… And the man was dead within milliseconds of her command. The men watching around her were left speechless, but before she could act, another bounty hunter had drawn his sword to slash her back. She felt his presence immediately, and dodged, smooth as silk.

"I don't know why all you bounty hunters are going after me," she monotonously said, as more and more hunters were trying to land a hit. 57 she counted, that were currently trying to kill her. "I don't even have a bounty!"

And with that said, she jumped back a few paces so she had enough space to secure them in one trance.

"_Painted last wish._"

The men fell down one by one as their mind was filled with blood-curdling images of their worst nightmares, which tightened around their brains. Soon they were on their knees, with their eyes shut tight and their hands outstretched, trying to grab onto anything they could. They were crying out with death wishes.

"KILL ME! KILL ME NOW! THE PAIN – IT'S EXCRUTIATING!"

Their comrades looked away at the horrific site that was played before them. Kia kept that same emotionless face, but she knew that this was enough to teach them a lesson to never cross paths with her. "_Liberty,_" she muttered, as the pain in their minds faded away.

They were gasping for air by the time they were released, and their bodies were exhausted. They then looked around them, fearing something that was not there – they were staring with frightened eyes at empty space. Her ability would leave them a little bit more than on the verge of madness.

The people around her were staring at her in disbelief. They had even paused their fight to watch the utter defeat of 'The Grand Lion Hearts'… which weren't really so 'grand' anymore.

However, despite the last successful fights, on Kia's part, one more man still approached her.

He had a slim physique with combed back blonde hair – it was freakishly styled, but nonetheless, Kia was on her full guard. A sinister smile stretched across his long face as two pairs of daggers were held up threateningly, and pointed towards Kia.

And, again, Kia was engaged in a battle as the tall man ran towards her with fluid, fast motions.

Her wide eyes widened further at the perfect speed and agility. Kia was not the best at fighting with sheer strength, but she managed to dodge a few attacks. A few landed minor scratches across her cheeks and arms, noticeably ripping her cloak as well. She fell to the floor as a dagger stabbed her thigh, but as he fell back in front of her, he was in the perfect position for her to carry out her mental maddening process. She closed her eyes in concentration and started uttering the words to bring forward devils into the mind, but before she could finish, she heard a deafening shout from Ace's familiar voice.

"Kia!! Behind you!"

But it was too late. The man had slashed a diagonal wound across her back as it gushed with blood, and she blacked out completely.

-&-

Ace had managed to severely burn the man that had injured Kia. She was taken to the medical room on the ship immediately and set in a room of her own to be treated. The battle had ended promptly after that. Whitebeard had commanded to loot their ships and then throw the bodies, alive or dead, back onto their vessels – at least it showed that Whitebeard wasn't _completely_ merciless.

However, Kia's secret was out, and no one could stop talking about how ruthless it all was. But Whitebeard had somehow expected a powerful Devil's Fruit fitting for such an appearance that juxtaposed the danger that came from a mind manipulation ability. She was just as strong as he had predicted.

Ace sat at the side of Kia's bed watching over her whilst she slept. Even unconscious, Kia had the face of nonchalance.

He kept asking himself if he should've helped Kia. After all, he had seen that tall, thinly man somewhere before and had a feeling he was more dangerous than her other opponents. He sighed ruefully, but, unpredictably, a familiar but unlike any other voice he had heard before shocked him into startling off his chair and to the centre of the room. His body tensed as he looked ready for another battle.

'_**Ha! Scared of a little voice inside your head, Portgas?'**_

The tone was mocking and crude – but uncannily familiar to the voice that had made him think he was going crazy when he had first met Kia.

'_Inside of my head?'_ he thought carelessly.

"How do you know my name? Show yourself!" Ace was agitated to say the least, and angered because he couldn't feel anyone else's presence in the room, apart from his own and Kia's.

'_**Well, I'm directly in front of you, ass!'**_ the voice spoke again.

He looked in front of him, but all he could see was the bed with Kia on it.

'_Wait a sec,'_ Ace thought, _'That voice… belongs to… Kia?!'_

He started to edge closer to the bed and stared at Kia long and hard, to see if she was actually awake and just playing games on him. However, her steady, warm breathing and the gentle rise and fall of her chest indicated that she was anything but awake.

'_**Kia? – pshht! I'm Kia's alter-ego, Fria, but I only come out when she's unconscious because I'm pathetically weak to control her body on my own.'**_

'_Are you… inside my head??' _

'_**Inside, outside… why does it matter? I'm here, aren't I, and that's all that matters.'**_

That confirmed that Fria could here all his thoughts, and that meant that she was inside his head. But he suddenly smirked, as an alter-ego would be just perfect in getting to know more about the mysterious Kia.

'_**If you think that I'm going to be telling you secrets that Master doesn't want knowing, then you're sadly mistaken! However,' **_he felt her wide, plotting grin, _**'I guess I could tell you a little more of what Kia's like… How does that sound, Portgas?'**_

'_Shoot away, Fria.'_

'_**Let's start with her ability. It's something like Mind Manipulation, which grants the user complete control over someone else's mind. She's able to put pictures, words and illusions into other people's head to create their worst imagined nightmare. Also, using the voluntary impulses sent to the brain, she's able to control the person's body. The scary thing about it is how she can turn a person into a mad or instable state of mind, thus making them beg for their own death, or, if she's kind enough to release her grip on their brains (like she did with those bunch of pirate hunters), they just get off with a crazed head.' **_

'_Interesting… sounds pretty powerful.'_

'_**Of course it's powerful! She can kick ass, you know! But there's always a weakness in every ability and Kia's is concentration. When she's in the state of mind that allows her to access other people's heads, her body's left completely vulnerable and open for any attacks. This is why she was beat down earlier.'**_

'_What about Kia's personality? What's she like as a person?'_

'_**Awfully eager, aren't we, Portgas?'**_

'_Well, I'm just curious…'_

'_**Hmm… well, Kia's always so laid-back about everything. Even in the face of death she can look calm and collected. She can be slightly oversensitive if someone insults her badly, but she can do 'oversensitive' in the most subtlest of ways – it's almost frightening. But, one person actually described her as 'an astronaut', because of how her head's always up in space…"**_

''_An astronaut'?! How strange…'_

'_**Pretty much, but that's Kia Wordstar for you, Portgas…'**_

_**

* * *

**_

_Adieu for now_


	3. Chapter 3

_Pirates_

_Chapter 3._

_To: all dear readers. Please review :) _

_

* * *

  
_

Kia stirred awake, her back throbbing, but her mind feeling weirdly rejuvenated. She sat up and felt at the bandages that covered her forehead and the large wound on her back inflicted from that bounty hunter. She felt like crap, and her stomach was aching with lack of food. What's more, she hadn't even beaten that guy with the dodgy haircut.

However, Kia wasn't one to dwell about past defeats and got over people hurting her so-called 'pride' easily. She stood up effortlessly as she slipped into her clothes again, fitting her cloak on top. She then walked out the medical room and onto the Moby Dick deck, where Whitebeard himself sat, along with half of the crew.

"Miss Wordstar, are you fit enough to be walking around with those wounds?" Whitebeard scolded, as if he were telling a pupil off.

"It never stopped me before, Sir," she replied uninterestedly.

Ace noticeably frowned in displeasure, whilst Marco just shook his head disappointedly, but a small smile still played on his lips. It seemed Kia was slightly stubborn about her health.

Kia looked around, as she leaned on the railings. She could see a large island coming in contact with the ship whilst noticing a small presence and the light tapping of boots coming towards her.

"All better already?"

She didn't have to see the face to match the voice up with Ace's. "A slash on the back isn't going to kill me. I'm perfectly capable to walk onto the deck, Mister. Ace," she cleverly retorted.

"Heh," he scoffed.

They had reached the island and everyone was slowly seeping off the ship and exploring the town.

"I'll be going as well," Kia explained as she started walking away nonchalantly. She walked down a pathway until she reached a fluttering town full of market stalls and heavy noise. The civilians were dressed as casually as she was, meaning that she fit right in. She pulled her hood up as she maneuvered round people and streets, weaving in and out of the noise accumulated by the chickens being sold at the market stalls and the shouts of, 'ROLL UP, ROLL UP; BOWL OF BANANAS FOR HALF PRICE!'

Back on the ship, Whitebeard had asked to see Marco and Ace privately in his chambers.

"I'm appointing you to a personal mission that involves a fellow crewmate"

Ace and Marco simultaneously raised their eyebrows knowing it was something to do with their mysterious new girl onboard.

"I need you to follow Kia Wordstar around the town and see if she reveals anything about herself. We had her join on a condition that she wouldn't answer any of our questions, but there's a trust issue between her and the rest of the crew that won't be solved until the men know that there's nothing deceitful about her."

"Right, we're on it," Marco obediently replied, as both him and his companion walked out the room and started right away to see if they could catch up to the strawberry-blonde petite.

They followed her through the town, and were thankful that there were so many people about.

After about 2 hours of walking, Marco and Ace were beginning to wonder where Kia was heading. They had made their way through a light forest, treading carefully through twigs and dried leaves. However, when they exited, all they could see was a sandy beach and the vast ocean ahead. Kia Wordstar, surprisingly, stood with another figure in front of her.

Marco and Ace hid behind a tall tree and watched from the sidelines as the man and Kia conversed, but, squinting, Ace could tell that the man was dressed in government uniform – Admiral Rank at that.

He was about to leap out of hiding, as running into an Admiral always meant trouble for pirates, but Marco stopped him and exclaimed in hushed whispers that they were only talking, and the Admiral hadn't yet figured out she was part of Whitebeard's pirates.

-

When Kia had run into an Admiral (Admiral Kizaru, she noticed) purely by coincidence, she started to fret. However, Kia Wordstar would never show her true intentions, and stayed calm whilst he approached her.

In a thickly accent he said, "What are you doing out here, girlyyy, on an isolated beach at the other side of the island?"

She replied with a nonchalant shrug. "I could ask you the same thing, old man."

"You look eerilyyy familiar…"

"Familiar, you say? I doubt not – I am but a mere civilian from the town. I come up on this beach every afternoon to relax and get away from the obnoxiously loud market stalls."

He eyed her suspiciously, but ignored his doubts and walked away silently back to his fleet. He hadn't time to be mingling with civilians when he had other things to do. He made it back to his ship with an aching headache and sat straight down in his office.

But no less did he get himself comfortable in his leather armchair, did the Den Den Mushi ring. He propped up his elbow on the table and reached out to grab the ringing snail.

"Kizaru," the dialer barked, "Have you caught her yet? The nobles are getting impatient! It's been years, so step on it!" And then there was a monotone beep resounding out the snail.

But, by now, the Admiral was no longer lounging smoothly in his armchair, but sitting upright with a grave expression on his face. He pulled out his drawer and ruffled through the piles of paper until he found a small photo with a pretty young girl, with an enigmatic smile gracing her features. She wasn't looking directly at the camera, but something that caught her attention behind the photographer.

Everything connected in his head now, and he startled out of his seat and ran to the deck. He shouted orders to the lowly marines.

"Find the girl!"

The imprudent order shocked the crew, to say the least. They had never seen Admiral Kizaru in such a state of panic before.

They immediately fetched their weapons and ran off the ship, quickly followed by Kizaru, who ran all over town searching for the girl. After a while of searching in vain, he decided to ask the villagers about if they had seen the girl in the photo. To his disappointment, each and every one of them said that they hadn't seen the blonde in the photo before and was not familiar with her face.

He growled in irritation. She had escaped and he had been totally oblivious about it all.

* * *

_ice-cream, or peanut butter&jelly sandwiches? _

_I can't decide on which is better for luncheon..._


	4. Chapter 4

_Pirates. _

_Chapter 4._

_Hello/Goodbye - please review in between your greetings...it's only polite_

_;)_

* * *

As soon as Admiral Kizaru had walked away, Kia had ran back to the ship. Everyone had returned and was all awaiting just 3 members – herself and, suspiciously, Marco and Ace, who were usually early to arrive.

But as soon as she was on deck, she saw the familiar masculine figures of Marco and Ace who leisurely strolled back. They climbed onto the ship, but as they did, Kia noticed a small exchange between them and Whitebeard. Whitebeard signaled for them to meet him in his chambers with a swish of his large thumb in the right direction.

They calmly walked through the crowd of Whitebeard pirates, occasionally waving casually to a few of them. Kia just shrugged, and before Whitebeard could retreat to his chambers as well, Kia stopped him by walking firmly up to him.

"Sir, Admiral Kizaru was spotted on this island when I was venturing around. He has a full fleet of men with him at the other port, but if we don't start to set sail, then we'd only have a slim chance of getting away," she uninterestingly informed.

Gasps and gapes thundered over the ship, as the crewmen decided to set sail at once. They knew that the Admiral's ability was anything but gentle on pirates.

Whitebeard took control over the crew when many mutters started to arise in an omnipresent state that grew louder and louder by the seconds.

"We set sail at once, men!" Whitebeard ordered. "Prepare the ship – put the sails up and don't forget the standard procedures!"

Each crewmember was in flurries, trying to haul up the sails and make sure that the logpose had set. However, Whitebeard retreated back and went in to talk with Marco and Ace in the privacy of dark walls, lit only by a few lamps dotted around the room.

"So, what'd you find?" Whitebeard curiously asked, as he sat down slowly into his large throne-like chair.

"For the first half hour, nothing at all, but then we came to a clearing at the other end of the island, where Kia had stopped and was conversing with another man, who we believed to be the exact Admiral Kia had mentioned she spotted on the island to the crew," Marco informed.

"Admiral Kizaru? Why in heaven's name would Kia Wordstar be talking to such a man?"

"There could only be so many implications made on this situation, but, it's inevitable that we have to think the worst – Kia could have been working with the enemy, making her a traitor to the Whitebeard Pirates," Ace grimly evaluated. He gravely looked at the ground, but not really _seeing_ it. He was in deep contemplative though, but the feeling that arose when thinking of Kia as a traitor was so much deeper.

"No, we can't assume that yet," the captain said.

Relief washed over Ace for the time being.

"I want you to continue this mission, and keep informing me on any suspicious activities of Kia Wordstar whenever you can."

"Yes, sir," they both replied obediently.

-&-

Once they were out into the vast ocean again, which, strangely, had become their new comfort spot, they had celebrated with deadly amounts of rum and a huge feast, commemorating that they had gotten out of sight unnoticed by an Admiral.

"_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" _they sang in unison, raising their rum barrels in the air.

Kia, however, was not a big fan of getting drunk and making fools out of her, so, instead, went up on the deck, where the party in the dining room would not interrupt her intimate silence.

Except one fire-bred young male would.

Ace stalked towards her, with his masculine hands casually tucked inside his pockets and a deep intent lying in his eyes.

"What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be in the party with your crewmates?" Kia asked without turning around to look at him. Instead, she leaned on her elbows against the rails and caught the night breeze in her hair as it blew away from her face.

The moon illuminated everything on the ship, as Ace stared at her exposed features for a few seconds, finding no set emotion in her eyes. He then replied, as he walked to lean next to her, "I could ask you the same thing, but instead I'm going to ask you something completely different."

She looked at him with a slight frown on her lips, but awaited his interrogation.

"Why are you still saying 'your crewmates' and 'your captain'? You're part of this crew as much as any of us are, and don't pretend that you aren't."

"Oh, trust me, I won't pretend," she retorted quickly, "Because every word of it is true. I'm not part of this crew and it's not where I belong either."

Ace felt so confused at her saying something so profound. He knitted his eyebrows together, but undid them soon after, resolving that he _would _ask her about everything.

"Why were you talking to Admiral Kizaru on the island?"

Kia stared at him for a few seconds with utter disbelief upon her face, evident in the rise of her thin eyebrows.

"You've been following me? Unbelievable…" Kia muttered.

"Well you won't tell us ANYTHING about yourself. I think we have more than enough rights to ask what you were doing talking to a damn Admiral!!" his voice started to rise in aggravation and it annoyed him more that Kia was still as monotone as ever, with her speech and with her character.

"Oh please," she said with quiet sarcasm, "you sound like a jealous boyfriend."

SNAP!

Oh yes, something inside of Ace's mind – or heart – instantly broke and he had enough of Kia's enigmatic responses. He firmly attached both his hands to her shoulders and forcefully pivoted her to face him instead of looking out at the sea.

She stared into his wild eyes and saw so much irritation in his expression.

"Enough Kia! You've been evading my questions from point one!" he shouted, his usually calm façade suddenly disappearing.

She whimpered slightly, as his grip on her petite shoulders tightened. But he didn't let go or lessen the pressure.

"I thought we were on the verge of actual friendship."

Kia widened her eyes at this, the sensation of a new feeling boiling in her stomach. However she simply diverted her gaze to the murky floorboards and replied, "We're nearing the Archipel-" she suddenly stopped half way through her sentence and bit down on her lower lip, afraid to say anything more. Ace thought about this in the few seconds of silence. 'Archipelago', was she going to say? But he couldn't think about it anymore, as she surprisingly looked back up into his eyes with a stony gaze, and her monotone came back into her speech again. "We never had, nor will we ever have, an actual friendship."

Several shivers were sent at lightning speed down his spine, and he was sure that it wasn't caused by being shirtless at night.

He looked deep into her eyes to look for a less hurtful answer, but instead, he found the sudden instinct to bring her in to his chest and kiss her oh-so-passionately.

And that's exactly what he did. She was pulled into his hard, muscled chest, as his arms wrapped around her shoulders protectively. His lips were warm and comforting, just like a small fire. Her lips were daintily plump and tasted mysteriously like elderflower.

Her eyes were round and widened further than usual, as he pulled away sharply. She was agape and speechless, but he was the one to speak first.

He asked in a light whisper, "Did you feel anything, Kia? Anything?" His voice sounded almost pleading, and she felt a whirl of sympathy for the young freckled male. "Tell me you did, Kia. Tell me you did, because you have most certainly enchanted me into believing that I've felt everything since the very beginning."

His hands were ghosting on her shoulders now, but for a few seconds she still felt as if there was a pain coursing through her body, and a pressure so heavy that she could've fallen to the floor.

However, she still answered his question, and with a slight stutter, she replied, with more emotion than before, "I didn't feel anything, Ace."

And she turned around and walked straight to her bed chambers, as Ace was breaking apart on the deck. Never had he felt that his pride was fractured more than he had at that moment. Not only his pride, but his heart and his sane mind felt like shambles too.

But before she had left, Ace had sworn that something peculiarly similar to regret shone in Kia's Mountbatten pink eyes before, during and after she had given her answer.

* * *

_P.S, guys, i'm still continuing this fic in spite of 'you-know-what' happening in the manga - and i only know about this tragic event because other people have spoilt it for me on FF :'(_

_So, farewell to the pressure kids._


	5. Chapter 5

_Pirates._

_Chapter 5._

_

* * *

_

After almost 6 months of sailing with the Whitebeard Pirates, Kia still didn't feel comfortable around any of the crew, and, for the most part, the crew didn't feel comfortable around her either.

After she had revealed her powerful ability and had used it to protect the crew on numerous occasions, they had trusted her a _little _bit more, but not enough, as the many secrets that she forcibly kept away from their ears were something that they found a little too fishy.

But despite everything, Kia still didn't care about the affections shown to her by others, especially when a _certain_ moment kept replaying in her mind, forever on repeat.

Damn that man.

A joyful cry was heard behind Kia that caught her attention immediately, although she tried not to make her anxious curiosity show in her body language or her expression. She was highly experienced in not showing her emotions to anyone, lest that be another weakness to add to her brimming jar.

"One more island till we reach Sabaody Archipelago! Rejoice!" the crew member shouted, as he linked arms with a fellow friend and danced in circles, rum bottles firmly clenched in their hands.

She quietly bit her thumb nail, a bad habit pulled off when she was thinking especially hard, and retreated into her chambers again.

-&-

"'Ey, Ace," Marco addressed, "What's up with Kia lately? I've been noticing she hasn't been eating much and rarely comes out of her room."

Marco wasn't the only person who noticed that Kia had been acting strangely as of late. Ace had noticed her strange behavior, but what was he to do, after Kia had rejected every advance of him saying he literally _loves_ her.

Whoa, wait a minute… Ace _loving _anybody, let alone Kia, was a thought that frightened him out of his wits. THE fire-fist Ace, who was infamous all around the seas, being in rapturous, harmonious and romantic L.O.V.E?

Pshht, yeah right…

-&-

"I'm requesting my leave from this crew, Sir."

The Whitebeard's had only just arrived at the next island when Kia had calmly walked out of her room, looking unusually pale, and had announced in front of the Captain that she wanted out of the crew.

The amount of momentarily shocked faces masked the expressions of everyone on the ship.

Whitebeard hummed lowly, but before saying anything, Kia extended her reasons.

"I won't be accompanying the Whitebeard Crew any further for personal reasons," she said calmly, as she patiently awaited the captain's acceptance.

Whitebeard thought for a moment, but remembered her advance information given on the afternoon that she arrived. She had mentioned that she may leave the crew at any time or moment, and that no order could be made to make her stop.

Whitebeard had agreed, but now that he knew what her ability was, he was a little bit more reluctant to just let such a young talent go.

He 'hmph'-ed, before stating firmly, "Fine, Miss. Wordstar. You may leave at any time."

The crew was shocked yet again, but after realizing that they were both serious in their decisions, they were all swayed into the 'let-her-go' frame of mind.

However, a certain black-haired fire man wasn't so easily deceived, and he sure hoped that these 'personal reasons' for driving away Kia were nothing to do with his broad confession a week ago.

And so, being the irrational 20-year-old purebred male, he spoke his thoughts in an imprudent tone. "You can't just let her go just like that, Captain!" Ace cried, as he swiped his arm in a fluid motion to accentuate his point. "She's been a part of this crew for 6 months – surely that's more than enough to know that she's our nakama!"

The rest of the crew, unnoticed by anyone but each other, shook their head in disagreement. A nakama didn't keep secrets away from the crew, no matter how confidential they were. Plus, Kia didn't trust the crew, and they didn't trust her.

Whitebeard opened his mouth to retort back, but Kia beat him to it. "What's it with you, Mr. Ace?" she asked monotonously, with her eyebrows calmly raised. "6 months isn't as long as you think – certainly not enough to accumulate feelings for other crewmates." She mumbled the last point lowly, so only Ace could hear.

His eyes widened slightly, before falling again to their original state, only they had an additional fierce anger to them.

"I'll be taking my leave. Thank you for this short acquaintance and have a lovely time in the New World. Au revoir forever," she calmly said, as she started to walk towards the railing of the Moby Dick, before jumping over it and onto the wooden docks of the new island.

* * *

_Oops, i hadn't realized that this chapter was so short, aha... sorry_

_But, review again please ;p it makes me happy to see my hotmail inbox brimming with emails from ff_

_Probably updating soon, because i have a two week holiday from school - ohyes :)_


	6. Chapter 6

_Pirates._

_Chapter 6. _

_

* * *

  
_

Ace furiously stalked to his room shortly after Kia left their ship forever. He slammed the door behind him as he sat at his dark wooden desk, and buried his head in his hands, as he shook the silky strands of his hair in irritation.

"Why? Why didn't I stop her?" Ace asked himself repeatedly.

But an urgent knock on his door resulted in Ace ordering the person into his chambers.

Marco followed in with a sullen look on his expression, but a certain glint in his eyes.

All was revealed when Marco suddenly exclaimed, "Ace, we HAVE to follow Kia!"

"What?! That's absurd!" Ace shouted. He couldn't, just because… well, he couldn't.

"Oh, come on, Ace! Aren't you in the least bit curious about why Kia decided to leave at this particular island and what sorts of secrets she's been hiding? She was with us for 6 months, and honestly, my curiosity has driven me insane since the beginning! This is the last chance we're going to get!"

Ace sighed deeply. Yes, his curiosity had been killing him too, but he just didn't think there would be a point in following her. However, he shoved his doubts aside, and went with his gut feeling.

"Alright, I'm in."

After all, he needed to find out if his confession had scared Kia into leaving the entire crew.

-&-

Whitebeard had granted Ace and Marco to leave the ship to explore the island for a bit, whilst the log pose was setting. They hadn't stated their real reasons even though they were lying to their Captain, but if they did, Whitebeard wouldn't let them off the ship. This was something they had to do without the rest of the crew knowing.

However, the sun was starting to set and brilliant pinks and oranges lit up the sky in an array of colors and they still hadn't caught up to her. She had accidently left a trail of her presence around the island, which Marco and Ace followed, but they still didn't find any more leads.

The trail she had accidently left had led them into a dense forest, to a small clearing with leaves scattered on the floor like carpet. However, the trail had ended suddenly, leaving nothing of her whereabouts any longer.

They had tried to turn back and re-step their directions of the trail, but it always led them to the same clearing.

Fed up, hungry and tired, they reluctantly had to call it a day, as the sun had almost completely disappeared beneath the horizon.

They started to make their way out of the forest in the direction of the Moby Dick, but Ace spotted a glimpse of white on a tree trunk. Curiously, he plucked it from the bark, and realized it was a small piece of paper, with a scribble of italic writing on it.

_Mr. Marco and Mr. Ace,  
I guess I __will __be seeing you again after all. _

Ace read the note quickly before showing it to Marco, who's eyebrows involuntarily knitted together in confusion.

"That's definitely Kia's handwriting, but I have no idea what she means," Marco exclaimed.

Ace, however, stayed silent in contemplative thought. They continued their walk back to their ship in silence, and when they managed to get back on deck, where they set sail soon after, the pair didn't dare to show anyone the note. This was their business only. They were the only ones who cared about Kia.

Ace went back into the solitude of his chambers, and didn't come out until the next afternoon, missing dinner and breakfast. However, it wasn't until about 2pm the next day, when they were far away from the island they had lost Kia on, that Ace noticed that on the back of the note, in smaller-than-breadcrumbs handwriting, was scribed,

_P.S, Mr. Ace,  
I felt __everything_.

* * *

_Wahey! Here's another installment, and i apologize AGAIN for it being so short... I can't seem to handle long chapters..._


	7. Chapter 7

_Pirates._

_Chapter 7:_

* * *

The Whitebeard pirates had reached the Archipelago in no time at all, and had set about at a steady pace exploring the different sub islands. They had decided on keeping a low key on an island that had many potential dangers on it; the Tenryuubito, for one.

But speak of the devil, and he doth appear.

As Ace and Marco was leisurely strolling around the bubble infested streets of a Sabaody grove, they had spotted the crowds around them slowly dissipating to the side of the wide road, as each and every one of them bowed down in orderly conduct.

'_Tch_,' thought Marco, as he quickly followed everyone else, bringing Ace down with him. Ace was reluctant, but Pops had specifically ordered them to keep a low identity, and to not do anything rash, no matter how frustrating it was to bow down to someone with selfish motives and an air of pure arrogance.

Just then, Ace caught sight out of the corner of his eyes, the naïve form of Roswald and his daughter, Saint Shalulia. He frowned in displeasure to himself. God, he hated those stuck-up nobles. What's more, they had a heavily beaten up slave being dragged along aside them in shackles, with a slave collar prominent upon his tanned skin. Ace looked away disgustedly.

However, another thing lit up his attention as he glanced up again. He was struck all at once by floods of confusion, for what he saw was one of the greatest shocks he would ever experience.

Walking a few meters behind Roswald, with a heavy scowl upon her flawless features, was THE Kia Wordstar.

Ace fumbled a bit. _'No, that couldn't be her…'_ He tried to keep assuring himself but it didn't work, as the more he looked at that figure, the more it seemed like Kia. She had the same strawberry-blonde locks and the same passive eyes and furrowing brows. However, her attire was a white dress that covered her curves in the most accentuating way, and her hair was tied in a scruffy, but adorable bun.

He had thought the worse when he first saw her face. Was she taken in as one of their slaves? Had she been beaten like the one in shackles? But, no, that couldn't be it. She neither had a slave collar on, nor had any shackles bounding her wrists or ankles. Moreover, her clothes were literally stark from even a single dust particle, unlike the rags that the other slaves wore daily.

Relying on instincts, he had the desperate urge to shout her name despite the Tenryuubito walking in front of her. However, Marco quickly put his palm to Ace's mouth in an attempt to shut it up. And it worked, much to the relief of Marco.

In hushed whispers, Ace harshly asked, "What is Kia doing walking with the Tenryuubito? We've got to do something – she might be hurt!"

"That's absurd Ace!" replied Marco in an even undertone. "We can't lift a finger with the Nobles around! Use your head, Ace."

Ace raised his eyebrow, questioning Marco with authoritative glares.

"She's wearing the same clothes as them, Ace! She may not have that freaky oxygen bowl on her head, but it doesn't dissuade the idea that she's _working with them_!" Marco had raised his voice in aggravation at the whole situation. He was beyond frustrated at everything that Kia had ever done, at Ace's retarded-ness and even of the treatment of the slave being dragged alongside Roswald. He had snapped, but no less did the whole situation get completely blown out of proportion at his loud tone, rising above every other sound in the Grove at the same moment the Nobles were walking past their spot.

Marco bit down a low growl. _Damn it_, he thought. _Just to add fuel to the fire_.

At that moment, Saint Shalulia swung her hips side to side as she walked over to them with a curious, yet angry glare in her eyes beyond her yellow transparent mask. She placed a manicured hand to her hip, and addressed the two undercover pirates.

"You two there, did you just _speak_?" she asked incredulously, disgusted that she was walking on the same earth as them.

Marco made sure to keep his lips tight, and Ace was going to do the same, but what Ace didn't know was to never, ever, under any circumstance, look into the eyes of a Tenryuubito directly – let alone glare into a noble's eyes…

Idiotically, Ace did exactly that. Even though he wasn't speaking, he still looked up and glared like an angered lion.

_No Ace!_ Marco thought to himself. He silently cursed. Would they be able to get out of this now?

Shalulia stepped back slightly, unprepared for his idiocy and ignorance. She nervously chuckled at first, but when he continued to glare, she began to laugh even more. "Foolish boy," she chanted, and with that she whipped out a gun from the waist of her body suit. She pointed it directly to his head, as a few people around them gasped, screamed, and ran away from the space, unnoticed by either of the two Tenryuubito.

"Shalulia, daughter, what has angered you?" asked Roswald, as he cautiously touched her shoulder.

"This ignorant boy just glared at me with a fire in his eyes rivaling the devils! That is treachery for as far as I'm concerned. Do something, father!" she pleaded angrily.

"He did what now?!" Saint Roswald bellowed. "Well, go ahead and shoot him, honey, if it'll make you feel better. The world would be less polluted without him!" he spat.

Shalulia smirked before muttering, "You're better off in the burning depths of hell anyway."

Ace smirked at that – he was a burning inferno himself, so he would be able to get along with Hades just fine. But he didn't feel like dying just yet. He laid his palm about 2 inches off the floor rigidly, about to summon his ability the second she shot. He had a plan – a plan that would get his ass dragged off by an admiral, but a plan nonetheless.

But after Shalulia had cocked her gun, and laid her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot any millisecond now, she was shocked to feel a weight on her wrist, and her whole arm being suspended in the air above her head.

The tight pain she felt in her wrist made her hand involuntarily widen. She dropped the gun and squealed aimlessly.

"I wouldn't do that, Shalulia," called the bored voice suspending the nobles arm next to her.

There were surprised whispers from the crowd that had bravely stayed to watch the unraveling show. Ace dropped his guard as he sat agape at the sight in front of him, as did Marco.

Kia was up there, rebelling against a Tenryuubito! Someone who surely hated pirates was going to crush little Kia in a minute, wouldn't they? They were still in their kneeling positions, but were too transfixed to notice that they looked miniature compared to the standing females in front of them.

"You ungrateful little brat!" Roswald burst out, splitting the silence, "Let go of my daughter's arm immediately!

Kia did as she was told, and gently lightened her hold, and lowered her arm back to her side. Shalulia immediately snatched her hand away, and rubbed her wrist, with a look of twisted disgust directed at Kia.

Ace inwardly cursed and fretted at what was going to happen. What if Roswald reported her and a buster call was summoned? Not only would all the pirates on the Archipelagos be in danger, but Kia would also be killed and literally skinned alive. Oh dear god, what a _pleasant _thought…

But the next line directed at Kia shocked the whole grove into silence.

Roswald spat out a strangled shout as he held Shalulia close to his chest, "You foolish niece! You may be a Tenryuubito, like us, but that does NOT give you any right to treat your own flesh and blood in such a way!"

'_Shit!'_ thought Ace, _'What have we gotten in to?'_

* * *

_Review, please?_


	8. Chapter 8

_Pirates._

_Chapter 8_

* * *

_[flashback to when Kia leaves the ship – refer to chap. 5]_

As Kia hit the docks of the island, she felt the sudden reality hit her square in the face. She was leaving the Whitebeard pirates – the only people who had made her feel at least a little bit more complete.

'_But please'_, Kia thought sarcastically, _'I don't belong anywhere except for where I'll be chained to for the rest of my life – with the rest of the World Nobles.'_

She didn't dawdle any longer and pushed any feeling of guilt, regret or sadness to the back of her mind, and to the very bottom depths of her heart. She started walking, and walking and walking. She didn't stop to look back over her shoulder. Yes, she could feel everyone from Whitebeard's crew staring at her retreating back, but she didn't dare glance over to see whether they were hurting at her leave as much as she was.

After much of the day gone, she finally reached the border of the island's forest, right at opposite ends to the docks where the Moby Dick was settled. She sighed in content; she loved the evergreen forestry. It never failed to calm her nerves.

However, as soon as her worries had died down they returned again in the embodiment of Ace and Marco, who were cleverly following her, but had yet to catch up to her completely. She paled as she realized that she had forgotten to cover her 'presence'. They were experts in tracking and she should have known that they would be persistent and try to get her back.

She inwardly cursed and screwed her eyes shut in aggravation. She contemplated her options, although she didn't have many…

But as soon as she closed her eyes and went into her deep train of thought, she soon regretted it. Admiral Kizaru stood in front of her with a curious tilt to his head and his arms crossed over his chest.

She startled back, but tried not to show too much fright in her eyes. She had been completely caught off guard! When had he even gotten there?

"I congratulate you," he slowly spoke in a deep baritone voice, "for being able to run from us for 4 years. It's only especially skilled people who can manage to do that. Now, come with me, Saint G-"

"It's Kia Wordstar now," she quickly interjected.

He smirked. "Very well, Kia-sama. Come with us without a fight and we won't harm you."

At that, she smiled cockily. "Or what?" she dared.

"Or we'll use force to drag you on our ship," he replied seriously.

She smiled slyly and threatened, "'Force me'? Are you forgetting that I have Noble blood running through my veins – the same blood of the people who created the duties you live for, work for and would die for? As much as you would like to, you cannot lay a hand on me, Mr. Admiral." She raised her eyebrows in anticipation as to how he would react.

He stood speechless for a few seconds, before slowly reaching his hand up to the back of his neck and rubbing it sheepishly. He grinned a lopsided smile and said, "You're quite right, Kia-sama. I cannot lay a hand on you." He dragged out the last word of the sentence in bad habit. His tough outer appearance from earlier disappeared and in replacement was his usual laid back self that suited him much better.

Kia smiled at this contentedly. She had stumped out an Admiral, but she didn't like the thought of her earlier speech. "You can force me on your ship if absolute necessary, Mr. Admiral," she said with ease, contradicting her threats from before.

The admiral raised his eyebrows in suspicion, but awaited her explanations.

"I would never use my heritage as a means to threaten and lower people to a sense of inferiority. I don't work like that. However, I won't go with you willingly for you to only bring me back to my living hell. So, I suggest a fair fight between us, Mr. Admiral." She smiled coyly, as a cunning glint sparkled in her large eyes.

"A fight," he repeated, "with a world noble? How interesting." He let the offer roll around in his mind for a bit before eagerly accepting. "I hear you have a devil's fruit, Kia-sama, so I dearly hope to be able to experience it."

She made no sign of acknowledging if what he said was true or not. Instead she was cleverly thinking of quick fire plans in her head. She had completed technical training sessions with Marco back on the Moby Dick and had learnt how to defend her body whilst casting a possession trance on an opponent. She had also learnt how to use her natural flexibility to dodge attacks and hit some powerful blows. She was pretty confident of her ability, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to pull this off. No, she _knew_ that she wouldn't be able to win. So why was she still getting her into this fight? She was trying to buy herself time to ready herself to go back to Mariejois. She wasn't used to living among royalty after 4 years of running away from all that. She was trying to give herself time for everything to sink in.

They both crouched into a fighting stance, ready to set the first move. However, before either of them had time to move, they both felt the oncoming persistent presences of two people walking towards the forest clearing they were currently in.

Kia sighed, and stood up straight again, the admiral doing the same. She knew that those two people were Marco and Ace. She needed to get out of here, lest she be in an awkward encounter with the two of them, and she certainly didn't want to speak to Ace right now.

She started to fretfully look around the clearing, trying to search for an escape from the two Whitebeard pirates, as well as from the Admiral.

"You won't be able to run, Kia-sama. We've been searching for 4 years and I'm not letting you go so easily, unlike the last time we met."

She inwardly cursed. She had run out of options and her life depended on 2 possibilities – face Marco and Ace with the Admiral standing close by and watch Marco and Ace be beaten up relentlessly and then struggle in the Admiral's grip as he drags you away to go back to the rest of the Tenryuubito OR willingly go with the Admiral now and don't face Marco and Ace, meaning that they won't get the shit beaten out of them either.

She weighed them out each, contemplated the pros and cons. But she already knew her answer.

"Alright, I'll go with you." She stared him deep in the eye, confident of her decision. There was no turning back now.

He smirked contentedly.

"But only on one condition," she added, "don't harm the two men that are coming this way. Just let us leave before they have time to figure anything out and mask our trails as well."

"Deal," he said immediately.

She sighed in relief. She wouldn't know what to do if the Admiral had engaged in a fight with Marco and Ace. She didn't doubt the two pirates' ability, but against Kizaru, they would have no chance.

She felt the cold element against her wrists, which were pinned behind her. The kairoseki handcuffs weakened her greatly and she felt her ability, as well as her natural strength, disperse from her body. She started to follow the retreating back of the Admiral but stumbled slightly with every step.

However, before she fully left the clearing, she still had the strength to use her flexibility to pull out a square of paper and a pencil from her back pocket, and awkwardly scribble a small note on it, addressed to Marco and Ace. The note read:

_Mr. Marco and Mr. Ace,  
I guess I __will __be seeing you again after all. _

The Whitebeard pirates were heading to the archipelago, she was heading to the archipelago… in the end she knew they would meet again in a twisted turn of events. She just couldn't help herself but to send a mysterious note along with her absence.

With great difficulty, she then turned the paper over and wrote a very small inscription just for Ace's eyes. She pinned the piece of paper on a nearby trunk. The white starkness of the note wouldn't be hard to spot, even in the dim evening light, so she had little doubts that they wouldn't be able to see it when they reached the clearing.

_P.S, Mr. Ace,  
I felt __everything_.

She couldn't help herself – she needed to know that Ace knew how she was feeling, as confusing as that sounds. Sure, they were going to meet again, but the chances were that it was going to be a brief encounter and they were going to be shocked at her. The reality of it all depended on her heritage as one of the tenryuubito. She had feelings for Ace, but the easiest way to continue was to let the hatred everyone_ must _feel towards the World Nobles as their stopping sign. Ace would surely retract his feelings towards her if he knew that she shared the same blood as some of the world's most deceitful and cruelest and then they could get on with their independent lives. And that was how she was visioning everything.

But you ask how she knew Ace would be the only one to read the note on the back of the paper? Well, let's just say that it was times like these when she had excellent luck.

* * *

_Delayed chapter, sorry - it's the ash cloud ;)_

_But this isn't very exciting anymore is it? I want to break up..._


	9. Chapter 9

_Pirates._

_Chapter 9_

_Thanks for all the great reviews / favorites, etc so far!_

_And sorry if there's spelling or grammatical errors - i didn't check this chapter through :(_

* * *

_[Flashback continuing from last chapter]_

_(Italics near the end of the chapter are the sections of texts I copied and pasted from Chapter 7)_

She could see it in her direct line of vision and an eruption of dread burst through her whole body. This was the place where she had grown up but nothing was more terrifying than her experience there – the Holy Land of Mariejois.

She clenched her eyes shut, hoping for the image to disappear when she opened them, but instead it was getting closer and the gigantic gate was opening for their ship. She sucked in a breath as the nose of the ship entered, and suddenly, the looming castle was shadowing over her, intimidating and mocking.

The marine ship came to a stop by a dock, as she was helped out. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back with kairoseki handcuffs. All around her, the guards were eying her warily, and a group of soldiers muttered indecipherable gossip. She turned away disgustedly, and started to follow a guard to the castle, as two other men held onto her arms tightly. The admiral walked beside her, not saying anything and acting uncharacteristically quiet.

By the time she had reached the large doorstep, her weakened state numbed her mind as well. All fear and anxiety had simply vanished, but her dread was still present in the pits of her stomach. She was appalled by her relatives and their filthy actions. And their unjust measures were stained on Kia for the rest of her life, no matter how hard she tried to run from it all.

Just as she landed on the front step, the door swung open and out came her uncle, Saint Roswald, who still had his oxygen bowl over his head.

His heavily shocked expression soon twisted into a grim set. "You!" he spat, seething with a mix of anger and annoyance.

She felt nothing inside for seeing her blood relative for the first time in 4 years. She had felt nothing for them, and she still felt nothing.

"You're alive," her uncle said, but his tone wasn't that of relief.

"She was found on the island before the Archipelago on the log pose," the admiral, who had guided her, pointed out seriously, but not looking the Tennryubito in the eye.

Roswald grunted before grabbing Kia's arm and dragging her into the castle, leaving the guards and the admiral to wander away.

Inside, Kia immediately felt a stinging pain on her left cheek. He had slapped her with ferocity burning in his eyes.

"You little bitch!" he spat, as he slapped the other cheek. She kept silent, for fear of what else Roswald would be crazy enough to do.

He dragged her off again, down the cellar stairs until they reached a dark basement, where only a dim light bulb was glowing faintly on the ceiling.

"Your cousins will be here soon too, to serve your punishment."

And just as he had said, Shalulia and Charloss, her cousins, as much as she hated to admit it, flaunted down the basement stairs with an air of retched arrogance in their stride.

"Ooh, look what the cat dragged in. It's the little bitch who thinks she's all it," sneered Shalulia. "And look at those horrid rags you like to call 'clothes," she gave off a mocking giggle. "Did you have fun breathing in that infected oxygen, you diseased slag?"

Kia didn't answer, but instead bit her lip down in fear of any of the comeback remarks that were building in her mind to suddenly fire at Shalulia.

Charloss looked on with an expression of dazed idiocy.

"You can come in now, slave," Kia's cousin ordered, tugging on a long chain that stretched out to the top of the stairs.

With a jingle of metal, a muscular and extremely intimidating male came down, with scars all over his face and his clothes completely black. He was managing to walk down the stairs as if he were perfectly healthy, unlike all the other slaves the Tenryuubito liked to keep captive, who could barely crawl, let alone walk.

"Now, I'm going to chain my little bitch cousin to this hook hanging from the ceiling," Shalulia explained to the slave, doing just as she was promising, "and you're going to be chained to the wall as well, so you don't escape. You're not to leave until the bitch can't move. Punish her with all you've got, slave. You got it?"

The slave seriously nodded his head, like a dog obeying orders.

Kia didn't retaliate when Shalulia hooked her Kairoseki handcuffs, so her arms were lifted at a painstaking angle from her body. She could already feel her arms grow completely numb. She was kneeling on the floor, her long, dull hair now completely curtaining her face.

She heard the basement door shut and lock, as she felt only the presence of herself and the butch slave.

And all of a sudden, she felt the bloody blow of a leg smash against her ribcage.

For the next 2 weeks, Kia was starved and beaten to a pulp. She was flicking in and out of consciousness and couldn't feel anything except the constant pain in her stomach and the fresh bruises. But on one morning, she was woken from unconsciousness by the loud turning of a key in the door, and the bright light that followed afterwards, flooding in from the main house.

"Ha, you look pathetic – more than you normally do, that is!"

Kia shut her eyes again, attempting to block out the cruel remarks from Shalulia.

Shalulia took the chain that the slave was tied to in her hands, and told him to undo Kia's shackles, but to keep the Kairoseki handcuffs on. She then ordered him to carry Kia back up to the house, and a knot of dread tightened in Kia. She didn't know which was worse – someone beating her up until she was close to death, or having to live in the same house as the Tenryuubito.

"Father's chosen for you to take your old room back. He thinks you've learnt your lesson now, except I'm hardly convinced. But I don't think it would be wise to run again, you got that, bitch?" Shalulia spat.

Kia once again didn't reply. She was way too weak to even move and the handcuffs didn't help one bit. All her energy just felt like it had completely seeped out from her, leaving her with a dead, unmoving body.

"Take her to the nurse's room," Shalulia ordered, taking the chain off her slave. "And then go back to the slave quarters. We can't have dirty mongrels walking freely in this household."

The slave obeyed accordingly. If he didn't, he would be dead within seconds. Kia still spotted the slave collar around his neck and even though he was the punisher for crimes, he was still a mere slave, meaning he couldn't deny that he was an underdog. In some ways, she felt pity for the poor man despite her recent beatings courtesy of the exact said man.

"_Ace! Ace!" she heard herself call out desperately, trying to grab at a fading figure. However, when her fingers made the slightest contact with the disappearing outline, her hand went straight through, like digging your hands in a nonexistent silk. Her tears couldn't help but to spill out the edges of her large eyes and she tried again to grab at the retreating form, which was running further and further away from her._

_She was about to give up, until suddenly, the figure abruptly turned around, and the familiar outline of Portgas D. Ace was standing in front of her. His features were indecipherable, but his eyes were as clear as day. But instead of his beautifully handsome orbs, all she could see was a hollow black filling the area of his entire eyeball. _

_She screamed, as the chase now backfired and she was running from Ace. He had a malicious twist to his expression that alerted the girl that this wasn't the boy that she knew. She screamed once again, stumbling over her own two feet, and then she heard him call her name in that silky voice that churned in her stomach and begged her to turn around and give in to the mercy of Ace's arms. But she still had the feeling that it wasn't safe. __He__ wasn't safe. _

_Her name taunted her as she ran faster. And then it grew louder, louder, louder…_

"_Kia! Kia! Kia!"_

She woke up startled and rapidly, as she sat up in the bed, panting with sweat rolling down her forehead. '_It was just a dream…_' she thought. And then the pain shot through her body. She groaned, and lay back down again, feeling the agony like poison spread throughout all her joints.

"Careful, m'lady!" she heard a young girl's voice say. It was gentle and heavily thickened with a cockney accent.

Kia turned to the side and saw a young nurse bow to her swiftly, before curtly walking straight to her and placing a gentle arm behind Kia's head to prop her back onto the pillows.

"You shouldn't strain yourself so much, m'lady," she said, pulling the duvets back up to Kia's chin. "When that slave bought you in 'ere, you were in such a state – bruises all over your face and more broken bones than I've ever tended to! But you're okay now, m'lady, the nurses 'ere have fixed you up good."

Kia just groaned again in reply. "How long have I been unconscious?" she asked in a raspy, dry tone.

The nurse passed her a glass of water from the bedside table, whilst curtly replying, "5 days, miss. You've been out like a candle. You must still be exhausted, so get some more rest." And then the nurse quickly exited, leaving Kia in peace again.

And that was when Kia really began to think… she missed Ace. But no, she wasn't falling in love with him – she couldn't allow herself such a selfish thought. She was a _tenryuubito_! They don't feel love, and Kia was convinced that she was functioned like that as well.

"You're coming with us to the Archipelago," Roswald said, pointing his gaze at Kia. So far, her relatives had not called her by any name, except for Shalulia insisting on calling Kia 'bitch' or something equally crude. Yes, like all the other Tennrybito, Kia had a name with the mandatory 'Saint' at the beginning. But her real Tennrybito name wasn't Saint Kia. She had simply made the alias Kia Wordstar up on the spot when she ran away from Mariejois. "And don't even think about running away again when we get there. Trust me, you'll be hunted down within seconds if you attempted it and then be brought back here to pay another set of punishments – only thrice as hard," he pulled back his head and gave a sadistic laugh.

Kia rolled her eyes. She hated that man. She hated everything about him – his laugh, his appearance, the way his beard would shake up and down whenever he said anything. But most of all, she hated his blood, his very existence disgusted her. Just sitting with him at the long dinner table along with all the other Tenryuubito put her off her venison and iced lemon tea meal. But then again, she should be ripping her skin off herself and evaporating her blood up so not a drip was included in her system because she still was a Tenryuubito even though she didn't have the same beliefs as them.

"There will be guards at every street corner and on every rooftop," Roswald continued, addressing her with a piercing glare. "They're armed and they'll be watching you and everyone else in mine and Shalulia's proximity."

Kia bit her tongue to keep back a harsh reply, but it refused to die on her tongue. "Too scared and weak to defend for yourself?" she spat out with narrowed eyes. "Perhaps you should have thought about all the people who would want to kill you, and all the people that _will_ kill you before you took for granted your 'authority' and abused it. You're living such a shit life. Everyone hates your bones."

Every single World Noble whipped their heads around to face Kia in a heated, shocked expression. Roswald suddenly forced his chair back and stood up to face up to his neice.

"How dare you talk to me like that!" he rumbled out, shaking the whole room into a complete silence. "Whether you're a World Noble or not, no-one speaks to me like you just did then, girl! You ran away and got mixed up with god-only-knows-what and now you return and expect me to lay down and take your imbecilic whines? I have been respectful to you with the intention to please your dead mother, my dead sister, but you will no longer be treated any differently than a low-class civilian if you don't follow our way of life, and you will no longer be accepted into this household if you don't bow down to my orders," he breathed deeply, in and then out, and lay his thin slits of eyes at Kia as her eyes widened, "after all," he lowly said, "I _am_ your superior in life. And you only have a life to begin with because you were born to be a Tenryuubito. You have the same 'crimes' on your hands as all of us. We may be selfish, but our actions are shared between us in this household. Get used to it, girl." He sat back down in his chair and continued eating as if nothing had happened. Kia stared wide eyed at open space. He had confirmed all the worst thoughts that had been going through her mind. She was bad – as in, just as bad as the people who she hated and despised. She didn't deserve Ace and he was meant for someone so much better.

Kia swiftly pushed her chair out, leaving half of her meal on her plate untouched. She headed towards her bedroom, slammed the door and slid down the walls, sobbing into her folded legs. She was so pathetic.

All the street noise disappeared and everything around Kia went silent. Everyone stopped what they were doing to bow down on their hands and knees. She scoffed, her fists screwing up in anger but she refused to let it show on her face and walked beside her uncle and cousin as if nothing was wrong. Shalulia and Roswald, on the other hand, were bathing in the attention and grinned smugly at the people submitting around them.

She saw more and more people bow to them in a canon of inevitable order. She scowled as she glanced around the Archipelago, but her irritation soon turned to shock as her eyes narrowed in on one of the bowing heads to the left side of the road. The orange hat with the two distinctive faces with contrasting expressions: she knew it all too well. Scoffing, she turned away again, blinking a few times as if she were seeing wrong. It wouldn't have been surprising – she had been thinking of Ace ever since she left the Whitebeard Pirates, but of course she wouldn't admit it out loud. It was just a mere hallucination, of course. He would never bow down to anyone, not even gods. But something had caught Shalulia's attention towards the direction of where she had imagined Ace. But before Shalulia went marching over, she heard a whisper of a mumble and then the clear louder ending of the same sentence: "… she's _working with them_!" in a voice that sounded strangly like Marco's.

She looked over and saw that all her supposed hallucinations were, in fact, never hallucinations. It was Marco and Ace in the flesh. And it suddenly dawned on Kia what Marco had said to Ace. 'She's working with them' was code for 'don't trust her, she's a part of the Tenryuubito and there's not a bone in her body that won't tell us that she's not about to set the Government on us, she was obviously planning this from the beginning.' Boy, did it hurt.

_At that moment, Saint Shalulia swung her hips side to side as she walked over to them with a curious, yet angry glare in her eyes beyond her yellow transparent mask. She placed a manicured hand to her hip, and addressed the two undercover pirates. _

"_You two there, did you just speak?" she asked incredulously, disgusted that she was walking on the same earth as them. _

_Marco made sure to keep his lips tight, and Ace was going to do the same, but what Ace didn't know was to never, ever, under any circumstance, look into the eyes of a Tenryuubito directly – let alone __glare__ into a noble's eyes…_

_Idiotically, Ace did exactly that. Even though he wasn't speaking, he still looked up and glared like an angered lion. _

_Shalulia stepped back slightly, unprepared for his idiocy and ignorance. She nervously chuckled at first, but when he continued to glare, she began to laugh even more. "Foolish boy," she chanted, and with that she whipped out a gun from the waist of her body suit. She pointed it directly to his head, as a few people around them gasped, screamed, and ran away from the space, unnoticed by either of the two Tenryuubito._

"_Shalulia, daughter, what has angered you?" asked Roswald, as he cautiously touched her shoulder. _

"_This ignorant boy just glared at me with a fire in his eyes rivaling the devils! That is treachery for as far as I'm concerned. Do something, father!" she pleaded angrily. _

"_He did what now?" Saint Roswald bellowed. "Well, go ahead and shoot him, honey, if it'll make you feel better. The world would be less polluted without him!" he spat. _

_Shalulia smirked before muttering, "You're better off in the burning depths of hell anyway." _

Kia saw the smirk crawl up Ace's face, and she swallowed, hard. Ace was going to get shot if she didn't stop this right now, or if he didn't get shot and somehow, with a great miracle, managed to defend himself and knock Shalulia off her high horse, then he'd be hunted down and killed for his bounty instead by government dogs.

Uh-oh, it seemed it would be the latter. Ace's hand was set 2 inches off the floor rigidly, which was his code for setting off his fire ability. Shalulia would be burnt to a crisp, and Kia was fine with that and everything, but the thought of Ace being dragged off the island by an Admiral was enough to make her stomach churn and her eyes see red. _Overprotective, much?_

No, focus, Kia! She heard the gun cock menacingly and Shalulia's slim, gloved finger was set on the trigger, ready to blow a hole through Ace's head. Ace tensed, ready to fire an inferno at Shalulia's face, but Kia wasn't going to let anything go any further.

Milliseconds before her cousin pulled the trigger, she was by her side in a flash step and holding her arm up in the air, with a grip that rivaled a full grown man. The pressure forced Shalulia to loosen her hold on her gun and it dropped to the ground in a merciful fashion.

"I wouldn't do that, Shalulia," she calmly said in a bored voice.

From her position, Kia could hear all the whispers from around her. And worst of all, she could see the purely shocked expressions of Ace and Marco from below her. To know what they were thinking on a daily basis never revealed itself fully, but at that moment, in the slightest instant, Kia could see everything going on in their minds exposed on their faces. He thought that she was going to get a big trouble for rebelling against a Tentryuubito's decision.

"You ungrateful little brat!" Roswald burst out, splitting the silence, "Let go of my daughter's arm immediately!"

Kia rolled her eyes at her Uncle's dramatics, but decided to eventually let go of Shalulia's arm. She snatched it back and rubbed her wrist, which had fingerprints painted on in red soreness on her skin.

And then the line that was going to unmask Kia's big secret that she had wished to keep away from the prying ears of Ace and the Whitebeards came out like a bullet from a gun.

Roswald spat out a strangled shout as he held Shalulia close to his chest, "You foolish niece! You may be a Tenryuubito, like us, but that does NOT give you any right to treat your own flesh and blood in such a way!"

It wounded him, and she could see it on his hurt face.

Her blood turned cold all of a sudden.

* * *

_Yes, i decided to carry on, only because i only have a few more chapters to go and i've never completed a story that's as long as this one before :') _

_But i really can't decide how to end this... please, please, please can anyone suggest ideas? Message me, or leave it in the review, i really don't mind, i just need some ideas... preferably happy ones!_


End file.
